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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

#1101: Bill Ryan

“Project Serpo” is the name given to an alleged top-secret
exchange program between the US government and an alien (non-existent) planet
called Serpo. Various details of the exchange program have been described in
several UFO conspiracy stories, e.g. on the UFO discussion fora run by UFO
conspiracy enthusiast Victor Martinez and, in particular, as detailed on serpo.org, which is is Bill
Ryan’s website.

The story usually involves Roswell,
and maintains that US government contacted the home planet of the alien craft
to establish some sort of diplomatic relationship between the US and Serpo (Serpo is supposed to be located in Zeta Reticuli,
the home of what other UFO conspiracy theorists believe to be the home of the Greys),
including sending twelve military personnel to visit the planet (all of them
later died from “after effects of high radiation levels from the two suns,”
which is not consistent with the actual Zeta Reticuli but convenient for
explaining away the absence of witnesses). Much of the information has
apparently been contributed by a guy who claims to be USAF Sergeant Richard
Doty, but then again Doty has been involved in quite a range of UFO
conspiracies with little connection to each other. Another problem with the
theory is of course that Serpo fails to exist, that we know quite a bit about
Zeta Reticuli (incompatible with the conspiracy theories), that the accounts
violate most laws of physics (and logic), and that there is a total absence of
evidence to even begin to back up any of the claims. But such are UFO
conspiracies.

Apparently many ufologists believe Project Serpo to be a hoax, but since we are dealing with people with a
tenuous hold on reality, even these have a tendency to think of it as a hoax
perpetrated by the American military and intelligence communities as a cover
for real secret programs.

It should be mentioned that Bill Ryan, a chief proponent of
publicizing the Project Serpo claims, stepped down from his role as webmaster
for the Serpo material in 2007. He still thinks an extraterrestrial exchange
program did occur (because he wants to – not because of evidence), but admits that
the Serpo releases definitely contained disinformation. The current maintainers
of the site are apparently very disappointed that Anonymous is not pursuing
their story. This gullible story on the project by author Steve Hammons does not put Hammons’s other authorship
in a very confidence-inspiring light.